Visit A VR Escape Room To ‘Travel’ To The Moon And Back In Time With Your Pals

Developed over the course of one year in Paris exclusively for the Virtual Room group (four outlets in Paris, Geneva and Brussels), the game is designed to be at a beginner’s level — easy enough for noobs like our team of four to play (a more intermediate level is in the works and will be ready by next Feb). Sounds easier than Monopoly.

Like a typical escape room, you play in teams of two to four (four is optimum), and, together with your teammates, solve puzzles to save the world. Unlike a typical escape room game, each player gets to use VR equipment worth about $5,000. It may be a collaborative effort, but you’re actually stationed alone in a 3m by 3m room, to prevent any (real-life) accidents when you knock into other teammates. “Is it going to be scary?” one of our companions asks with trepidation. Admittedly, getting holed up solo in a dark room with nothing but four walls for company does have the makings of psychological thriller.

But you forget about that once you put on the HTC Vive headset. Once we’re plugged in, we’re instantly teleported into a highly immersive alternate reality: It’s the year 2217 and we’re perched in a futuristic control room reminiscent of Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence’s space shuttle in Passengers. Plus, we’re able to see and communicate with our teammates. We forget about the solitude, and relish the fact that we look and feel a little like Cyclops. Neither Jen nor Chris shows up as reinforcements. Bummer, because the world outside is in dystopia, and we have to save all of mankind in just under an hour. Okay, forget JLaw — I think we need Mystique on our team.

Turns out, four of us mere mortals manage to rescue humanity even without Mystique’s help. Without giving too much away, we’re whizzed back and forth in time to solve puzzles and obtain codes. At one point, we’re gingerly tiptoeing around for fear of plunging to our death in a medieval dungeon… until we remember that it’s just virtual reality.

We proceed to explore ancient Egyptian pyramids, and even traipse all the way back to prehistoric times. You may get distracted occasionally, like when our teammates started hurling rocks at us. Superheroes need to have fun too, y’know?

Even if you think you’re holed away in a medieval dungeon like this one, someone always has their eye on you. The banter between two of our teammates has veered into schoolboy humour territory. Like an annoying class prefect, I remind them that each group’s assigned game master can probably hear everything we say. “Yes, I can,” a voice booms.

It’s not Morgan Freeman, but our game master who’s tuned in, not to eavesdrop, but to drop hints in case your team gets stuck. Being watched doesn’t stop them from continuing to clown around — it is, after all, about bonding.

We get to take a selfie once we’ve accomplished our mission (above). "Why are we even smiling?" one of our teammates asks as we're trying to nail our #VRselfie. For those who prefer the real thing, there's a (real) photo wall at the Virtual Room for a couple of Insta-worthy moments.

Thing is, you may get so used to the VR universe that stepping back into the real world may cause some disorientation. Like our friend, who quips as we stand among the throngs in Chinatown after the game: “Are these people real?”

$39 per game per pax, Mon to Thu; $49 Fri to Sun. Virtual Room is at Basement 3, Lucky Chinatown, 211 New Bridge Rd. For more info, go to https://singapore.virtual-room.com/.